No other film in the race had a longer gestation.
He eschewed CG for practical effects whenever possible, upping the budget and the risk.
“It didn’t feel like everybody was going to set every day,” he says.
Jasin Boland
“It felt like we were going into the wasteland: real vehicles with real assailants after you.”
“Neither Josh nor I are journalists,” McCarthy says.
We wanted to get that right."
Jasin Boland
Few films have gotten the culture and context of newspaper journalism this right.
“That to me is the greatest accomplishment of the movie.”
He finds himself alone on the Red Planet without enough food to survive until another ship might reach him.
Kerry Hayes
“It’s very optimistic,” says Damon.
“If he panics, he’d be dead,” Scott says.
“The optimism is fun.
Aidan Monaghan
Great fun, actually.”
The bear, for the record, is completely digital, but you’d never know it.
“You feel like you’re watching something you shouldn’t be watching,” DiCaprio says.
Kimberley French
“I approached the book with trepidation,” Abrahamson says.
“It was in my bones to tell this story,” he says.
“We’re still here,” he says.
George Kraychyk
Integrity is a tricky commodity in a story packed with spies, diplomats, and politicians.
“They’re all performing,” Spielberg says.
“It’s very, very hard to know what people really believe, because everybody has an agenda.
Jaap Buitendijk
Everybody has something they don’t want to tell us.
And that’s part of the entire genre of the spy movie.
You’re just supposed to be along for the ride.”
Jaap Buitendijk
For Crowley, the antidote was to lock into the characters' quietest moments.
“They were the essence of the film for me,” he says.
“You look back at it and think, God, that’s so great.”
Kerry Brown
That’s exactly what’s happening in my own life."
Her performance charming, delicate, and nuanced rises from her deep connection to the character.
“It was all so close to who I was.”
Vera Anderson/WireImage
“It was the first time I had felt actual fear going into a project,” she says.
Director Todd Haynes praises her commitment to embodying characters so deeply that she almost becomes mistaken for them.
“But in reality she’s nothing like Carol.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Cate doesn’t have any of that mercurial fog or those neuroses.
She does seem to know, though, about playing the object of desire.”
“I didn’t even bother reading the script,” she admits.
Ian Gavan/Getty Images
“It would kill David to make a movie the normal way.”
“Thank God, because I’m not a good mopper.”
This suits me.'"
Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images
“I always wanted to get down and down and down into myself.
I wanted that to be my journey through the acting world.”
He was most interested by the challenge of portraying a character who barely speaks.
Rich Fury/Invision/AP
“It was always about the bear fur,” he says.
But in the past 18 months, Eddie Redmayne has cemented himself as the cinematic heir to Daniel Day-Lewis.
Redmayne located the twinkling charisma and effortless charm within the astrophysicist’s wrecked body.
Samir Hussein/WireImage
His costar Alicia Vikander agrees.
“He’s such a thoughtful person,” she says.
“So I never questioned that the film would work with him playing the part.”
SIMON LAESSOEE/AFP/Getty Images
By obeying the rhythm, it actually does a lot of work for you."
Turns out the old joke is true: How do you get to the Academy Awards?
Practice, practice, practice.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images
“The whole world wants to bring him home.
Who is that guy?
It’s Matt Damon,” says costar Jessica Chastain with a laugh.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
“He’s so likable we have to root for him.”
“But anything he does is something I’d like to see.”
“Normally I like to wait to rehearse with other actors and see what happens,” says Damon.
Victoria Will/Invision/AP
On the first day we shot the first monologue where Mark realizes he’s stranded on Mars.
It’s a two-page speech and we did it in one take.
“I wanted to make a run at solve things in real time,” he says.
Kimberley French
I learned that from Birdman."
It was worth it, according to them.
Not that his vision was always easy to communicate.
Caitlin Cronenberg
“He’s unlike any director I’ve ever worked with,” says Tom Hardy.
To make a totally uncompromised film version of her book, Abrahamson pleaded, he should be the director.
That’s particularly true given that he was considered a dark horse for a nomination.
Jaap Buitendijk
“I was absolutely flummoxed and flabbergasted when I heard my name,” he says.
“It’s wonderful that not everything in life is so predictable.”
Who better to see the farce within the fiasco?
Jasin Boland
“What were we paying attention to?
This pop culture noise that’s always around us.”
“We knew it was breaking some primary rules of filming,” he says.
Kerry Hayes
“But you let the story tell you what you have to do.
It just felt like that had to be the way.”
Like his characters, McKay was the oddball who saw the big picture.
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
Not the chrome spray in Nux’s mouth, nor the wire skull that adorns Furiosa’s steering wheel.
And it has earned him his first Oscar nod for directing.
Miller prefers to run his sets like a partnership with his cast and crew.
Casey Curry/Invision/AP
“It all felt very collaborative,” says costar Charlize Theron.
It was very authentic and organic."
“Fury Roadhas to be seen in a cinema; the experience would be diminished at home.
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
“Hopefully, we did that.”
And, like all journalists, they were aided by their sources.
“To get a favorable response from them is as important to me as anything.”
Vera Anderson/Getty Images
The article said that Tom Hooper was going to direct Eddie Redmayne in the lead role.
Researching the part afforded Vikander an education in both trans rights and love.
That’s something I really listened to and was very moved by.
Gabriel Olsen/FilmMagic
I’m glad it’s such a part of our film.”
Or maybe the film is shooting in Hawaii.
But Kate Winslet accepted the part of Joanna Hoffman largely because it scared her.
Dan Hallman/Invision/AP
She needn’t have worried, though.
Winslet delivers a cool counterweight to the gravitational force of Michael Fassbender’s fiery Steve Jobs.
She balances his tunnel vision with her broad view, his drive with her strategy.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
And like their real-life counterparts, neither could have succeeded without the other.
Fortunately, being enamored with her costar helped.
“I’ve looked up to Cate Blanchett since I sawElizabethwhen I was 13,” Mara says.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
“She was so good at taking our last-minute rewrites and turning them into gold,” Singer says.
Everything we threw at her, she literally could learn stuff within minutes."
“Acting is something I loved so much, but I had sort of forgotten about it.”
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
His friends are gone.
His wife, Adrian, has died.
And he’s been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Patrick Aventurier/Getty Images
The former heavyweight hero is now a defeated champion living among ghosts.
“He wasn’t sure that audiences wanted to see Rocky that vulnerable,” admits director Ryan Coogler.
“And that was an uphill battle for him.
“The hospital shoot was tough,” Coogler says.
“We were pressed for time, and I remember on that day we had to move really fast.
I only had one camera in that small hospital room.
I did a push-in on Sly’s face, and on the first take he nailed it.
Something felt so special and so real about it.”
“He vibrates through the entire movie,” says director Tom McCarthy.
That physicality also represents the actor’s personal commitment to getting the film made.
“Mark really is the heart and soul ofSpotlightin a lot of ways,” says coscreenwriter Josh Singer.
It’s a story we need to tell.'”
“I try and avoid making sweeping generalizations about a character,” says the London native.
“John makes the executive decision to not bring Glass back because he’s a liability.
It’s not nice.
It’s not very palatable.
But it was a brutal place back then.”
“There is something alike in the objective of our two businesses,” he says.
He wore Burry’s clothes, emulated his breathing, and mimicked his office routines.
“So that office really became his mind, and once we got that, it became incredibly exciting.
Suddenly, you’re really getting to just watch someone’s mind work.”
Bale invites you inside while simultaneously maintaining a distance, a coolness that is essential to the character.
Burry was always three steps ahead; so is Bale.
